Perhaps it is really as horrifying as the fictionist Brian Aldiss wrote, and maybe it is why refugee camps are being targeted again, along with Red Cross ambulances, and buses crammed with families fleeing from villages that had been warned previously, supposedly, that they would be bombed with extreme prejudice.

Image: a self-portrait of sorts by Beirut-based artist Mazen Kerbaj, capturing not just mere likenesses but the drawing of defiance and a nation under attack. Images posted with permission from the artist. More inside.